In the past I have written columns
critical of the Israeli government and its actions
against the Palestinians. As it was perhaps
predictable, I have therefore been accused of
anti-Semitism by some readers. This month is
the turn of the Palestinians to be considered
rationally speaking, and I cant wait for
the mail I will find in my box after this column.
Oh well, at least I am an equal opportunity
offender.

Historically, of course, the Arabs
behavior against Israel is easy to condemn:
they engaged in wars with the stated purpose
of annihilating the state of Israel, a goal
which was part of the charter of the Palestinian
Liberation Organization (the pertinent articles
have been abrogated in 1996, as part of the
peace process facilitated by US President Clinton)
. While it is certainly true that Israel as
a modern state came about in a way that, shall
we say, wasnt exactly Kosher by the standard
of the United Nations, it seems to me that any
group of people who elects as their main goal
the destruction of another group of people cannot
be considered with too much sympathy.

Furthermore, PLO leader Yasser
Arafat has perhaps been the worst thing that
ever happened to the Palestinians, clearly been
much more interested in cultivating his ego
and consolidating his meager power, then truly
worried about the fate of his people. Indeed,
the recent power struggles at the top of the
Palestinian administration between Arafat and
whoever happens at the moment to be so foolish
or naive as to think of being able to open a
new chapter in Palestinian history, have become
symbolic of the permanent stall of the peace
process. That new chapter will be opened,
one is forced to conclude, only after Arafat
will be gone because of the natural biological
decay that eventually overtakes every human
being (the same, it appears, will have to be
the case for Cuba and Castro -- though the latter
has done significantly more for its people than
Arafat has done for the Palestinians).

It is also true that, for all
the (perfectly justified) call for independence
from Israel, the Palestinians are the only Arabs
living in a democracy, and they are enjoying
its fruits while at the same time invoking the
help of sinister characters like the now deposed
Saddam Hussein, Libya's Muammar Gheddafi, and
the Saudis royal family -- none of whom
is particularly well known in the world for
encouraging free speech. Indeed, when Palestine
will be an independent state (and I am confident
that this is a matter of when, not if), its
people will have some hard choices to make in
terms of form of government -- choices that
may truly influence (hopefully for the better)
the rest of the Arab world.

But the Palestinians have another,
much more urgent, choice to make right now:
they need to make up their mind whether to pursue
nationhood within the respect of the United
Nations charter, or to continue to use terrorism
as their alternative diplomatic tool. Let me
be clear on two things here. On the one hand,
I in fact think that there really is no choice:
the Palestinians have to outlaw their violent
Islamic group and incarcerate their leaders,
the sooner the better. On the other hand, I
am not here condemning terrorism in all forms
and for all purposes (boy, is this going to
cause some angry e-mails!). The United States
of America was established out of what were
initially terrorist actions against the British
crown. Italy, my native country, started its
own independence movement around the middle
of the 19th century with an underground group
of patriots called the carbonari
(coal men, because of their habit of going around
always dressed in black). The carbonari are
patriot heroes for the Italians, but they were
(justly) considered terrorists by the Austro-Hungarian
government then occupying Italy.

What I am suggesting is that terrorism
is simply the way poor people wage their wars:
if you dont have tanks to roll into town,
you can always throw a bomb at a vehicle full
of your oppressors. However, terrorism -- like
war -- is justified only under extreme circumstances,
and only for as little as possible. While the
Palestinian circumstances may at one point have
called for violent action against Israel, they
certainly have ceased to do so for many years.
Ever since the international community (and
in particular the United States), as well as
a majority of Israeli themselves, have started
to see a Palestinian state as eventually inevitable,
suicide bombers have only delayed that long-waited
moment to hasten which they have irrationally
agreed to tear themselves into pieces.

The Palestinian people, then,
are on the brink of an historic moment (in fact,
they have been there for several years already).
They are currently torn between two opposite
forces that are attempting to bring them towards
completely different directions. On the one
hand, the terror of Islamic fundamentalism;
on the other, the hope for the first Arab democracy
to emerge by choice (the Iraqi one, if there
ever will be such thing, is being imposed from
outside -- something that is much more unlike
to work in the long run). Palestinians simply
cannot go both ways, and they better make the
choice now, before yet another external power
is going to make it for them, leaving them to
live with whatever the consequences would be
for generations to come.

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